Last Sunday was America’s biggest sporting event and arguably the biggest advertising moment of the year: the Super Bowl. The half-time commercials are anxiously awaited, and while the winner of the sporting event is always clear, the victor of the advertising battle is debated for days and weeks afterwards.

Brands compete for whose über expensive advert can generate the most excitement around a brand. Generally it is the half-time commercials that create all the excitement – but what I want to focus on here is one brand’s super-quick reaction to the power outage that stole the night for free (compared to around $4m for a 30 second half-time slot).

Whilst the lights were out @Oreo tweeted “Power out? No problem” with a picture of an Oreo cookie and the tagline: “You can still dunk in the dark”. This inspired piece of spur of the moment marketing received over 15,000 retweets.

What it also showed was the global effect of social media; if you bought an ad slot it was shown to those watching in the US but Oreo’s tweet reverberated around the world.

Looking at our social media analysis – known as YouGov’s SoMA – we can see a 20-fold increase in the reach of Oreo on Twitter. On an average day news about Oreo reaches less than 0.5% of the Twitter population in the UK; on Monday that was up to 10%.

SoMA Chart:

So well done Oreo – an inspired moment that is driving conversation about the brand, even here in the UK.

Gay marriage

By the time this column goes to press, MPs in Westminster will almost certainly have voted in favour of gay marriage – but what impact will that have on voting?

Well, in spite of all the excitement it has generated, the impact will be pretty much zero. A YouGov poll at the weekend found only 7% saying that gay marriage is an important factor in deciding their vote. This was split 54% to 44% more likely to vote for a party supporting the measure. And just 5% of Tory supporters said that gay marriage is an important factor in deciding their vote.

Boiling this down; at the extreme it might reduce Tory support from 34% to 33% of vote share, but even that is probably an exaggeration. Perhaps more important will be the impact of Conservative infighting, which may have been exacerbated by disagreements in its ranks over gay marriage. 71% of people now see the Conservative party as divided – the highest level we have ever recorded.